Monday, December 31, 2007

Home Alone


Obviously, I did not go to Texas with my husband and daughter Sunday. I been experience numbness and weakness in my hands, I noticed it when I was preparing a feast for Thanksgiving. I tried ignoring it because I thought it would go away. I can no longer keep ignoring what I have been feeling because I experienced a new symptom that frightens me.

I had already told my husband I would not be going to Texas; I let him believe it was because I was upset with him. Which is wrong of me, but what the hell? I was upset with my Baby Girl because after putting my pride and stubbornness to the side and calling her to tell her I was sorry. She did not come home that morning. To be honest it bothered me, she did not come home until late that evening. I expected her to tell me she was sorry for her part of the argument and she did not after that, I shut down and decided I would give her what she want. I had nothing more to say to her and I do not know when I will.

My husband did not make things better when before my daughter came home, he said something I did not like, in all fairness to him. He did come to me and said let us start over, but I was already upset with my daughter and I was not ready to start over with him.

Hopefully, this new reaction I experience was because I was upset. Stress is a bit** it wakes up crap in your body and I try to keep my stress down. Although, I consciously felt I was not bothered by my daughter’s actions, subconsciously I must have been. When my nerves start trembling, I did not say a word. I did not say anything because I did not want to interrupt my husband trip (I was no longer mad with) and I did not want to be the reason he did not see his Mother (which I know is very important to him).

When I went to bed the nerve tremors on my left side was hard to ignore. I did not think anything of it because with my multiple sclerosis my nerves tremor mildly through out my body every now and then. As I said at first, it was mild, but gradually my entire left side started tremoring violently. It was so violent the entire bed was shaking. My mind start racing wondering what was happening. The violent shaking stopped after five minutes, but that five minutes felt like an eternity. My next appoint to my neurologist is not until February, but she gets in my a** when I do not tell her of noticeable changes. It is time to call because my noticeable changes have been headaches that caused dizziness and lost of balance, hand numbness and weakness, now violent nerve tremors. I bet a silver time my neurologist is going to schedule a Solu-Medrol infusion; I hope it will be for one day instead of three.

I am going to be optimistic about the violent nerve tremors, that probably happened because of the argument I had with my daughter and it was our first. My daughters are very respectable and I my feelings are hurt that my Baby Girl took her frustration of breaking up with her boyfriend off on me. The one thing I will not apologize saying to her is, “If you are broken up with someone, you cannot be dating. Because if you do date him now and then you are not broken up, you are just playing with yourself”.

I do not sugar coat LIFE with my children, I have always told them how it is because no one loves them as I do and I have no reason to lie to them. I know she is hurting from leaving her first love, but like I told her she is young and she will definitely fall in love again. A young man I know who likes my daughter afar, emailed me recently and ask me if she was still seeing the young man she met in college. I emailed him back and told him no, I want to share a portion of what he emailed back when I told him she was single. I probably should forward the email to my daughter maybe it will help her realize she will fall in love again.


The email referencing my Baby Girl...

So as not to bore you with more law school talk, I must say that I'm relieved that you weren't offended when I asked you about T***. I know that mothers can be very protective of their children. I do have to admit that I've been interested in her, particularly when you informed me that she was socially-conscious and had an activist streak in her. To any man who's also conscious, single, and ambitious, her qualities would stand out. And I'm not brown-nosing when I say that I could tell she had your spunk and passion when I saw how she got involved with various issues at Vanderbilt. And lovely too? Beautiful inside and out? What a combination. The bad part was that she wasn't single.

I haven't cyber-chatted with your "triple-threat" (T***) since long before the last time I corresponded with you, so I have no idea what's going on in her world. Anyway, let me not digress any further. She's a gem; that's undeniable. She probably deserves the best; I'd supply nothing less. But, unless I'm missing something, I don't think that she's looked at me in that way. Sometimes there are women who see later what they couldn't see sooner. Sometimes there are women whose preferences change as their priorities change (in life and in time). Sometimes it's greater later. Said Bill Withers: "Good things come to those who wait, but not to those who wait too late." I'm sure you understand. If I weren't knee-deep in law school preparations and plans, I'd probably email your Baby Girl.

Winning takes a plan and a strategy, along with many intangibles. No one can win for me but me, just like no one can get someone else into Heaven. If I might quote author Claud Anderson, we all have our own row to hoe, our own trail to blaze, and our own path to find. It would be one of life's uncanny ironies if my and Tara's paths crossed that way, but of course, the true question is whether the two ships intersect at parallel lines or at perpendicular lines. (Remember that from Math class?) If those lines are perpendicular, then those two ships will meet by coming from different paths and then will diverge because they're on different courses. If those lines are parallel, then that means that the two ships somehow meet while coming from similar paths but continue on, beside one another, while charting the same course forward. But again, no matter what the lookout sees, "It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it out of sight." If it's meant to be, it will be.

To me, she would be gold.
Her rarity - exemplary - unfolds.
The look of her lash, the purity of her pupils,
Cheeks that know no tear.
The luster of the eye, that innermost ambition,
Her driving force - no fear.
Whether in wind or in water, in humidity or heat,
Each day would be blessing, refreshing, unique.
Every blue moon, yes, dare there's a frown.
Heart's temperature up, up, then down.
But never, never long enough for her sweet smile to drown.
To hold her is bliss, so kind, the first kiss.
To acknowledge this not, is foolish, remiss.
Her energy, frenetic,
Her virtue, a wonder.
What D**** joined together,
May none put asunder.



Anyway, anyway, anyway...

Maybe you liked that poem, maybe you didn't. It was all in the spirit of fun (with a hint of seriousness).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Debra, after reading your post, I am so sorry about how you left things with your daughter. And I am so sorry how she left things with you. Then the trouble with your hubby on top of all of that. Well, at least he left for Texas after you both resolved your differences.

MS is to blame for alot of our "mental anguish" in our families. I believe it is also to blame for how we go about resolving problems with our family members. Pain can make us behave sooooo differently than we did, say, 5-10-15 years ago. And you and I both know about pain.

As you may have read in my blogs, I have an autistic son, age 25 now, and my other son is age 23. Not having daughters, I can't empathize with your mother/daughter relationship. But I can as far as mother/child.

With them, no matter what our argument may be, I am known for saying, "please leave me be; I'm too angry to discuss this further right now." They have the same option to say to me. And they do.

Then I "try" to make sure that I arrive at a conclusion or resolution before the day is through so the situation has some resolve.

I have tried to teach my sons to handle all their "situations" the same way, be it with me or someone else, because of how our family unit is comprised. It is just me, my husband, and my two sons. We have no other family left.

Both sons have experienced loss of a friend through death (accidents, drugs, suicide, cancer), as well as their grandparents when they were young children. Both sons understand "how you leave things" with others and what if....

It took sooo much longer to "get through" to our autistic son. Even though he is 25 y/o, he functions around 16 y/o. He actually is a fun teenager right now. However, autistic children and "feeling" are so far apart and it took years after his diagnosis at age 5 for things to "click."

I understand your daughter is going through a break up, but whether it is that, or some other situation/argument that has surfaced between you and her, staying out all night doesn't solve anything. It only feeds whatever bad feelings that exist for each of you.

And your leaving things up in the air with her, only adds stress to your MS as well as causing you worrisome thoughts (as stated in your post).

Do we let our children work out their anguish alone? (we hate to)

Do we become a "quiet" soundboard for them? (that is hard)

Do we tell them how it is? (I'd love to, but telling them and them actually "learning" are 2 different things)

Do we email/cell/text/contact a friend to tell them to come home to talk about it? (I am not beyong calling my sons on cell - our main mode of contact here - as they will call me too).

The answer to all of the above is as unique as each child is to the mother. What works in your house is known to you; what works in my house is what I share but in no way push upon you.

Because we are alone here, and the guys in this house know that we all have "only" each other, it makes for very close relationships between all of us. Our sons have best friends but they only have one Mom and one Dad.

And because of that, we all treat each other as I have stated above. We never let more than that day go by without some kind of resolution.

As far as the email you posted from the admirer from afar, I would not forward it to her without some verbal prefacing first and I would not do it until she is feeling better about the end of one relationship before thinking about another.

But you already knew that. (smile).

I hope on this New Year's Eve that all of this turmoil you are going through right now is tied up in a nice neat package. And I hope you get lots of phone calls at midnight.

Love, Anne

Blinders Off said...

Anne,

There is no need to feel sorry for me spending tonight alone. I could have gone to one of my other daughters home.

I have a beautiful relationship with my daughters; we do not have a bad relationship, which is why my Baby Girl flare hurts my feelings. She is 22 and completed college in May. She has the world readily available and she is thriving in her career.

I talk to my daughters’ everyday. She called me from Texas...all is well to a degree, but we still have to have a face-to-face conversation to completely resolve the argument.

I actually follow the techniques you listed that you have with your sons. No matter what our children do, a mother's love never wavier. Our feelings get bruised, but women are the strongest beings on earth.

I wasn't going to forward the email to her, when she visit my blog she will see it. That is what most of my part of our conversation was about, healing the heart before moving on to someone new.

Overall, everything is good. I plan to enjoy my evening alone and get some much-needed rest. All this stress has also caused my insomnia to kick in.

Stress is a silent killer and I try to avoid it like the plague.

Enjoy your evening...Happy New Year

Debra

Anonymous said...

You wrote: "There is no need to feel sorry for me spending tonight alone."

I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I only meant to commiserate with you, as women do.

If in the wording of my post that I have offended you (as it sounded to me in your opening of post), I apologize.

No offense was intended.
Anne

Blinders Off said...

Anne,

My feelings were not hurt and I was not offended. I apologize if you thought so.

I called my self commesirating (mother to mother) with you ... All is well :)


I talked to my Parents about my Baby Girl situation. She doesn't think she owes me an apology. I can live with that for now. She will open her eyes to the situation sooner or later.

2008 is starting off crazy, which hopefully means sanity will be returning soon.

Diane J Standiford said...

MS hates hurts in the heart. This too shall pass.

Blinders Off said...

Diane,

I think this will take awhile to pass, but my heart is on the mend.